Agent047

952 - The Reopening of Old Wounds

{The number of people online is expected to continue decreasing as they finish their preparations,} Nyx said, finishing her report.

“So, do you suspect they are preparing for us, or are they trying to deal with Dreznor faster?” Aron asked. He had already escorted Rina back to the imperial palace before logging into ...

951 - The Good and Bad News

“.........”

The room that had moments ago been a battlefield of loud arguments and clashing opinions among Conclave leaders now stood in utter silence, so quiet that even the fall of a cotton strand would have drawn attention.

“I’m surprised we’re even arguing about this,” the Grand Xor’Vak said, his...

950 - The Dilemma

Economy, often called the backbone of any society, is what enables a reliable and predictable exchange of goods and services, freeing individuals from the burden of producing everything they need to survive. In civilizations as vast and varied as those of the Conclave, its importance could not be overstated. Leaders, whether ...

949 - A Bad Revelation

“What? What do you mean by that?” Kumakar asked, his voice faltering slightly despite his best efforts to maintain composure. The tremble in his tone betrayed the nerves he’d tried to mask since the beginning of the meeting.

The chamber, for its size, looking nearly physically empty save for a few high-ranking mil...

948 - Aftermath

The holographic display in Dreznor’s command center was a stark, brutal ledger of loss. The Little Protagonist’s voice, usually a cheerful, melodic counterpoint to the grim realities of war, was now a flat, dispassionate recitation of facts.

{Casualty count: thirty million. Ten million confirmed dead. The remaining ...

947 - The Shadari

[Apologies for the silence in these few days. I was dealing with my cousin's wedding]

Twenty Minutes Before the Explosion on Planet Kumpo

Deep within the cavernous hangar of the Erythian mothership, amidst the cacophony of a million bio-engineered monstrosities being unleashed, a sma...

946 - City for City

A silent, blinding flash tore through the void of space. A large number of the mountain of biological monstrosities, which had been swarming towards Planet Kumpo, simply ceased to exist. They were vaporized in an instant. Those that survived were propelled outwards by the shockwave, were immediately targeted by a swarm of tra...

945 - A Queen on the Board

The command center on Planet Kumpo hummed with disciplined efficiency. Orders, rapid-fire and precise, flowed from the tactical consoles. “Reinforce sector seventeen point five! Place three more stealth mines in that area, set to alternating energy output for optimal stealth. Increase patrol fleet density by two, and ensure...

944 - Calling His Bluff

A chilling silence descended upon the Conclave’s war chamber. Both the physically present individuals and their holographic counterparts remained motionless, their minds racing, sifting through the layers of information that had just been presented. Kumakar, however, was an anomaly. His face, invisible to all, held a faint,...

943 - Aaaaaaah So Close

The holographic projection of the intelligence officer flickered before Kumakar, displaying a dry, concise report. “Through the data provided by the Empire, Your Excellency, we have managed to verify the identity of the poster. He was on a ship heading towards an unknown destination before the video was uploaded, and immedi...

942 - Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The representative's face carried an almost imperceptible sign of agitation as he looked at the man in front of him. He sat across the virtual table from Youssef, his crystalline form reflecting the sterile, featureless walls of the Empire’s standard diplomatic meeting room in the VR. The viral spread of Dreznor’s message...

941 - The Reaction

The ripple effect of Dreznor’s broadcast was immediate and devastating. Within hours, the video, an anomaly bypassing established communication protocols, exploded across the Conclave’s digital networks like a super-contagious virus. It latched onto every open connection, every shared link, spreading from friend lists to ...

940 - Dreznor's Address

By the twelfth hour since ‘Operation Liberation’ had begun, an obscure post materialized on the Virellan side of the Conclave’s primary social media network. It was a simple video, yet it held a power that transcended the digital realm. Slowly, quietly, it began to gain traction. Then, with a sudden, explosive surge, it...

939 - Spreading Flames

By the tenth hour since the coordinated counteroffensive had begun and while the battles still raged across dozens of contested star systems under the invaders' control, a high-level emergency meeting was underway within the Conclave's war chamber.

The room buzzed with urgency. Holographic feeds from dozens of battlefro...

938 - Dreznor, The Man Under Siege

{We’re putting up a strong fight. The local recruits are holding their ground with a determination that can only come from defending their homes. They know what’s waiting for them if we fail,} the Little Protagonist said, her voice calm but underlined by urgency. {We haven’t lost a single planet yet. But the last one we...

937 - Precedent

Aron hovered in the silent void of the Universal Simulation, a silent observer observing a dozen different wars unfold across a dozen different star systems. Before him and the high-level government officials and their corresponding AIs, holographic displays bloomed like malevolent flowers, each one a window into a world unde...

936 - A CRISIS

A silent, blinding flash erupted on the main viewscreen, a star being born and dying in the space of a millisecond. The Elara admiral froze, his hand halfway to his chin. He turned his gaze to the tactical display, but before he could even focus, the feed switched, showing a live, horrifying image from the planet’s surface....

935 - A Welcome

The after-action report painted a grim but predictable picture. The battle with the rearguard had been short and brutal.

“For a rearguard, they were surprisingly aggressive,” the Elara admiral mused, his eyes scanning the data streams. The invaders had fought with a suicidal ferocity, a desperate, cornered-animal ra...

934 - Operation United Front

As each day passed and the situation continued to deteriorate, the Bilakis civilizations intensified their propaganda, fanning the flames and pushing the blame squarely onto the Empire. Their efforts bore fruit—attacks against imperial citizens surged, and frustration among the Empire’s own population skyrocketed. Yet, th...

933 - The Effects on Imperial Ctizens

It seemed the fear of death had become an excellent motivator for the officials who had met with Kumakar. They had already begun implementing their share of the plan, and gradually, their hatred toward the Empire deepened, fueled further by worsening economic conditions that had finally started to impact them directly. Most o...

931 - 932

931 - A Potential Solution I

A heavy, expectant silence filled the holographic conference. The military liaison, his projected image a stoic mask, was the first to break it. He had felt Kumakar’s burning gaze on him for what felt like an eternity and knew that the silence could not hold. To let it s...

930 - Kumakar's Dillema

The air in Kumakar’s private stateroom was thick with the metallic tang of ozone and the ghost of shattered crystal. What had moments ago been a chamber of opulent authority was now a landscape of wreckage. A gilded chair, its legs snapped, lay splintered against a bulkhead. Shards of what was once an ornate decanter glitte...

929 - Youssef at Work

The silence in the virtual conference room was a sterile, heavy thing. It was a space designed by committee, reflecting a dozen different aesthetic sensibilities and achieving none of them. Polished chrome surfaces bled into holographic wood grain, and the air itself, though nonexistent, felt filtered and cold. Youssef, Minis...

928 - Getting Close to the Truth but Missing it

“So we’re dealing with an unknown enemy who wants to drive a wedge between us and the Conclave, and the Conclave now believes we’re behind the attacks and they won’t listen to our explanation that we were manipulated into striking one of their fleets?” Aron said after a moment of silence, having digested th...

927 - About the Attacks

While Kumakar was finding a strange satisfaction in how things were unfolding, despite the economic pain his civilization would soon face, the issue of the recent pirate attacks was still being investigated. It had only been a few hours since the incidents occurred, and the Empire was still gathering information from both the...

926 - Implementation

The order was implemented as soon as Youssef relayed it to the relevant agencies. The wormholes were closed across the network, only allowing ships currently outside their home systems to return. After that, even those vessels would be denied access. But half an hour before the lockdown, the Empire sent out a civilization-wid...

925 - Kumakar's Situation

"The guilty always look for ways to escape answering questions," Kumakar said, his voice sharp with indignation. "We should still send them our list of demands. If they refuse to respond, we’ll treat their silence as an admission of guilt."

On the surface, he looked every bit the leader who had just been vindicated, c...

924 - Keeping His Promise

“You know,” Kumakar began, his voice low but heavy with restrained fury, “when I first received word that the Empire had attacked my fleet, I had a hard time believing it. I didn’t want to accept it. It was only after I saw the recovered data myself that I even began to consider it might be true.”

He stared at...

923 - Delegation II

“We came here with the promise of war should the explanation you provide to us be considered underwhelming, and you deny our compensation demands should we deem you to be the culprit behind the situation,” Kumakar said, maintaining eye contact with the Emperor, seemingly observing his reaction.

To his surprise, the ...

922 - Delegation

As expected, the top fifty civilizations, except for Grand Xor’Vak, who didn’t even bother to vote, nearly all voted against the motion, as they are the ones who have been benefiting from the Empire and had also directly experienced the devastating power of the blackhole bombs voted no. The footage of the bomb’s effects...